AI Software Helps Prevent Recurring Mental Illness

People with mental health issues find it difficult to keep a track on their therapy. A new AI software showed beneficial outcomes in sorting out this issue and preventing the relapse of mental illness in patients.

AI software showed beneficial outcomes in preventing relapse of mental illness in patients.

Researchers from the Flinders University developed an AI software that helps people in fighting against recurring mental illness.

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‘AI2 software tool found that 10% of the psychiatric patients were not adhering to the therapy plans. It served as a digital help for people with mental health problems by sending an alert when medical intervention is needed.’

The software tool has undergone an eight-month trial with psychiatric patients from the Inner North Community Health Service, located in Gawler, South Australia.

"AI2 delivers important data in real-time, providing clinicians with an effective digital alternative to monitoring patients," said Flinders' Associate Professor Niranjan Bidargaddi.

What makes mental health treatment burdensome?

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"Once a patient has sought an initial consultation with a clinician, they might be provided with a diagnosis, a mental health care plan, and then they are sent off with instructions for treatment such as taking medication or trying therapeutic techniques. Multiple ongoing medical appointments and medications are burdensome for patients to manage on their own. The problem is that most clinicians don't have the resources to keep track of every patient manually. This can lead to the patient relapsing and potentially becoming hospitalized," said Niranjan Bidargaddi.

He also felt that in a country like Australia, where about 600,000 people live with a chronic mental illness with multiple morbidities, these old approaches could leave the patient on a downhill trajectory, leading to worsening symptoms.

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How could the new AI software help?

The Actionable Intime Insights software (AI2 software) was used in a trial of 304 patients previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar, or other mood disorders. They had been given psychotropic medications.

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The software continuously analyzed Medicare Benefit Scheme and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) from the national My Health Records. During this process, the tool used some additional algorithms and monitored patients' data to find gaps in continuity of care.

The tool found that 10% of the participants were not adhering to the therapy plans. This posed a severe threat to their mental health as they were likely to miss their medicines and disengage with health services.

Once those gaps were established, an alert was delivered to the monitoring clinician to intervene.

While talking about the usefulness of AI2 software, Niranjan Bidargaddi added, "Feedback from the clinicians at this stage suggests they actually saved time on routine calls, as they would only contact the GP when necessary - such as if the software had detected a missed prescription refill."

Source-Medindia